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Thursday, 22 March 2018

Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism. A Change of Tone in Germany.

Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism. A
Change of Tone in Germany.

Israel-German relations has
suffered over recent years by the utterances of the former Foreign Minister of
Germany, Sigmar Gabriel. This Socialist
politician constantly bated the Jewish State with references to apartheid.

As an example, while attending a
meeting of Muslim migrants in December 2017, supposedly to counter the growing scourge
of antisemitism in Germany which included the burning of Israeli flags by
Muslims following the United States decision to officially recognize Jerusalem
as the capital of the Jewish state, Gabriel told them of his visit to Hebron
several years before which, he said, reminded him of “what was seen during
apartheid.”

He did not say that in Hebron
today it is the Jews are a heavily guarded minority and, in that town, those
suffering from apartheid are the Jews who desire to live there because of their
devotion to the profound Jewish heritage sites such as the Tomb of the Patriarchs,
the burial place of the biblical Abraham.

When the forefather of the Jewish
people bought a plot of land on which to bury his wife, Sarah, it was the first
mention of Jewish legal possession of the land, a fact that is ignored by
UNESCO, much of the Muslim world, and by the former German minister.

The Tomb itself was built by
Herod, a Jewish king, in homage to the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs. He
built it centuries before Mohammad established the conquering faith of
Islam.Also buried there are Isaac,
Rebecca, and Leah as inscribed in the Old Testament, the Jewish Bible, written
centuries before the Koran.

Gabriel, obsessed with the apartheid
motif with which people like him attempt to cast a shadow of shame against
Israel, called the Jewish state an “apartheid regime” back in 2012 and,
with German arrogance, he did it during a visit to the Jewish state. He was not
short of supporters for making such a statement on Israeli soil. Hamas praised
him on its Twitter feed.

But, with the new elections in Germany,
the tone is changing with the promotion of Heiko Maas to the position of German
Foreign Minister. Although from the same party as the offensive Gabriel, he
recently departed from his predecessor’s anti-Israel rhetoric, by saying that he
rejects labelling Israel as an “apartheid regime.” The German Foreign
Ministry confirmed that “Foreign Minister Maas has never made such a
statement and will also never do so in the future.” This is warmly welcomed
by any clear thinking person. Past statements from important politicians such
as Gabriel contributed nothing to the dialogue, or to peace. On the contrary,
they added venom to the current poisonous atmosphere. This is a vital lesson
that should be learned by other European foreign ministers.

As a timely and poignant reminder
to these European politicians, Maas said that “I did not go into politics
out of respect for Willy Brandt, the late Social democrat chancellor, or the
peace movement. I went into politics because of Auschwitz.”

Experts on antisemitism view the comparison
of Israel with the former apartheid regime in South Africa as a contemporary form
of antisemitism.

At the recent 6th Forum
on Global Antisemitism, I was fortunate in sharing a lunch table with Efraim
Zuroff, the head of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center who
said of Sigmar Gabriel, “by falsely claiming that Israel is an ‘apartheid
state,’ he denies its democratic basis, which is a central tenant of Israeli
statehood since its establishment, and he legitimizes unjust attacks on the
Jewish state for sins committed on a regular basis by all its neighbors but not
by Israel.”

The case of Hebron, where Arabs
massacred Jews in the late 20s, and continue to kill them today, is an example
of the hypocrisy of the apartheid falsehood.

Barry Shaw is the Senior
Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
He is the author of the book ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS, and Antisemitism.’